Prof. Yanik received his BS and MS at MIT in Engineering and Physics in 2000, and PhD at Stanford in Applied Physics, where he invented a mechanism to stop and store light pulses in microchips. He completed postdoctoral work in Stanford Bioengineering and Neurosurgery Departments with Steve Quake and Theo Palmer, and appointed as faculty at MIT in 2006. He is currently tenured Associate Professor in Electrical and Biological Engineering Departments.
His studies are recognized by NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (youngest recipient), NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, NIH Transformative Research Award, Packard Award in Engineering and Science, Alfred Sloan Award in Neuroscience, NIH Eureka (Exceptional Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) Award, Shillman Career Award, NSF Career Award, Silicon Valley Innovator’s Challenge Award, Technology Review Magazine’s “World’s Top 35 Innovators under age 35″, Junior Chamber International’s “Outstanding Young Person”, and Technology Research News Magazine’s “Top ten advances of the year”. His team’s studies have been highlighted in ABC, The Economist, Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist, Biophotonics International, Popular Mechanics, Nature Physics, The Scientist, Genome Technology, and others.
